Restless

(usual disclaimers apply: I do not own Castle or any of it's characters.)

It's hard not to think about mortality when you walk through a grave yard on the way to your home after school everyday. Especially in rural Ontario where you are either buried amongst the graves of your relatives who have lived in town for decades, or, more often than not, you are buried alone. Regardless of the circumstances and the life stories of every single person lying under tombstones in the St. Patrick Memorial Cemetery, walking through it day after day, had a large impact on Meredith's life. As she would walk the hurried steps to her house, she could not help but realize that pretty much everyone buried in what is basically her backyard, is forgotten. This realization scared the young girl and was the cause of many sleepless nights.

When Meredith would braid her bright orange hair with her friends, or have tea parties and study sessions, they would always joke about her crazy unrealistic dream of moving to New York to become an actress. Sure, every girl wanted to be an actress, and every girl wanted to move out of the tiny town they grew up in, but to seriously be considering this career path at the end of senior year was unheard of.

"Where do you get these ideas from?" she was once asked by her then best friend, Amabelle, who had no other ambition than to marry her high school sweetheart and raise her family on a farm in the same small town of Dublin, Ontario that she had lived in her whole life.

Even Meredith's other friends, one of whom was going into health science (the closest thing to pre-med in Canada) at one of the greatest schools for science in the province, could not understand her obsession with being somebody important and famous and living the crazy, wild life of an actress.

"What's wrong with being who you are Mer?" Her friends added to the Amabelle's original question. "We love you how you are, and you are such a great person!"

"You guy's don't understand." She replied simply, picturing the many different faces she gave to the deceased who no one ever gives a second thought to. "If I don't aspire to be more than who I am, who will I ever be? And who will remember me?"

Meredith dismissed the chorus's of "we will remember you"s from her friends, but haphazardly agreed just to change the topic. She left for New York two days after graduation.

Had present day Meredith and the Meredith she was as a child ever sat in the same room, nobody would believe that they could be the same person. What once was an overly thoughtful, perceptive young girl had become a seemingly vapid self absorbed woman, and then a ill tempered, vain old lady. However, looking back on her own life, her failed acting career, her brief, unsuccessful stint as a wife and mother, Meredith could see that she had never really changed, and that she accomplished everything she had ever wanted to.

When she first came to New York, Meredith had landed herself a small role in a way off Broadway production of some insignificant play written by a mentally insane play write. It ultimately failed, and did nothing to further her career, but it did introduce her to Martha Rodgers, and by extension her son.

When she found out she was pregnant she was delighted, mostly because her growing need for attention allowed her to understand that a marriage to a best selling novelist- a mystery novelist who could understand her obsession with grave yards no less, would attract a lot of press.

When she grew a bit bored, and after that need for attention had pretty much taken over her life, Meredith cheated on her husband, left for LA and became the untrustworthy, bubbly personality that she remained for the rest of her life.

Although, Meredith might be remembered by her incredibly small fan-base, and the somewhat well sized one that her ex husband had acquired after she died, she realized that it was the strange family that she had accumulated along the way that would never forget her, and the stories of her wacky adventures that would likely be passed on, for at least a generation or two. And with her last conscious moments, Meredith realized that to be in the memories of those who mattered to you was what mattered the most.

Castle stepped off train in Dublin Ontario, closely followed by his wife and muse Kate Beckett, and his daughter Alexis. He had been shocked to hear the news of his first wife's passing and had flown up to Canada without a moments hesitation, to where she had been spending the last few years of her life.

St. Patrick's church was mostly empty, save for them, three old women who looked to be childhood friends of hers, and a handful of young girls who participated in the acting class that Meredith ran once a week right until her death. Castle would have thought that there would be more people here, that she would want to be buried in LA, amongst the stars, but the almost smile on her face just made her look so content. It had been a very long while since Castle had spoken to her, and even longer since they had a decent conversation, but he was sure in that moment that the restless soul that had haunted her during her lifetime was finally stilled, and she had finally found what she had been looking for her entire life.

A/N

I'm not exactly sure what this is... I've been sick and I haven't slept at all tonight (it's already 5 in the morning) so please let me know if it's absolute garbage so I can rewrite it or something. This idea just wouldn't leave me alone.

Thanks for reading!